“Spencer came to see me and laid it all out. There was nothing for it. I sent him an order-buy those weapons. And you know Ripley even staved that off. And still Berdan’s men had no decent weapons. Those boys finally did what I could not. They threatened to mutiny in January ’62, and it came close to a fight right in the shadow of the Capitol. God knows he did not fear me, but I guess that scared Ripley. Ripley signed the order for the Sharps, probably with smoke billowing out of his ears.
“Replace him? Would that I could! But who would I find to replace him? There is no one else with his qualifications. Then even should I be able to find a replacement, the law requires a formal retiring board, and that would be drawn out and public. In fairness, I must admit that I owe to Ripley the fact that we are able to get a fine Springfield musket into the hands of every soldier by now, and the man has the uncanny ability to squeeze a penny until it screams, but we could have done so much better.
“Let me give you another example. I saw it early in the war in the loft of Hall’s Carriage Shop across from the Willard Hotel.” An observer would later describe Lincoln’s delight with the weapon.Mounted on a two-wheeled slight artillery carriage, the Union Repeating Gun consisted of a single rifle barrel with an ingenious breech mechanism. On top was a hopper which Mills had filled with steel cartridge cases, designed to hold regular.58-caliber paper cartridges. Lincoln turned a crank on the side of the gun and delightedly watched the cartridge cases drop one by one into the grooves of a revolving cylinder, while the mechanism automatically tripped the firing pin, extracted the cylinders and dropped them into a receptacle for reloading. Seeing the level of the cases sink lower in the hopper while others were spewed into the receiving tray.
“Yes, right then and there I saw its resemblance to a coffee mill with the hopper and all. That’s just what I called it, the ‘coffee mill gun,’ and the name kind of just stuck. The inventor, a fellow named J. D. Mills, called it the ‘Union Repeating Gun.’ Said it was ‘an army in six feet square.’ Why, he never got over the name change. Hurt his feelings something powerful.”
Lincoln interrupted himself to order the driver to stop next to a construction site. He got out of the carriage and walked over to a woodpile. He picked up an ax as the workmen recognized him and crowded around. “Sharpe,” he said, “you may talk about your ‘Raphael repeaters’ and ‘XI-inch Dahlgrens,’ but here is an institution that I understand better than any of the generals or weapons makers.” He held the ax out at arm’s length by the end of the handle. His arm did not betray the slightest tremble.
So, thought Sharpe, Fox’s story was true. The man’s strength is phenomenal. He said, “No, sir, I think you understand a great deal more.”
Lincoln winked. “Care to try, Sharpe?”
“No, sir, not on my best day.”
Lincoln laughed and slowly lowered the ax to the ground without a tremble. The workmen crowded around to shake his hand until he waved good-bye and climbed back into the carriage. Still, he could not shake his unhappiness with the chief of ordnance.
“Ripley was badgered into a field test at the Washington Arsenal, and I made sure a good crowd was there-three cabinet officers, five generals, and the governor of Connecticut, too. Everybody but Ripley was impressed. I even sent him a note telling him it was worth the attention of the government. Still nothing happened. Finally, I bought ten of them on my own on the spot. I pushed McClellan into ordering another fifty. I put them in the hands of the generals, and do you know what happened? Nothing. Good ideas are laying around like chestnuts in the fall, Sharpe, and no one has the wit to pick them up.” Lincoln slumped back in his seat, “I just can’t do it all.”
Then he straightened up again. “There was small fight in Middleburg, Virginia, last October where the gun was actually used. It was turned on a squadron of cavalry and cut them up so badly that they fled the field.”
Sharpe commented, “It is a common problem. These weapons arrive, and no one has any idea how to use them, and more importantly, no one has the sole responsibility of seeing that they are used and used properly. Let me give you an example, sir. You godfathered the Balloon Corps and when Hooker was with the Army, Dr. Thaddeus Lowe’s balloons did great work. They were a vital source of intelligence, which I found most useful in supplementing the work of my bureau.” Sharpe referred to the hydrogen gas balloons invented by Dr. Thadeaus Lowe. It was only a demonstration with Lincoln himself that had resulted in their introduction into the Army. Hooker had been the first general ever to go up in a balloon. They proved critical in the survival of McClellan’s Army in the Peninsular Campaign. And so ubiquitous were they hovering over the Union lines, peering into the enemy’s depth, that the Confederates developed a healthy fear of them and went to great lengths to hide from their searching telescopes. Reports flashed from telegraphers in the balloons whose wires ran down the heavy tethering cables and directly across the battlefields to Army headquarters. “I tell you, sir, I have no other words than to describe their reports as ‘near-time’ intelligence. Nothing else at our disposal for the collection and transmission of intelligence was almost instantaneous.
“The corps just died of neglect, sir, neglect, and petty-minded spite. The officer appointed to supervise the Balloon Corps, since Mr. Lowe remained a civilian contractor, was as officious as he was small minded and rank conscious. He drove Lowe to resign by reducing his pay and refusing to seek funds to repair or replace the worn-out balloons. When Lowe left, the Balloon Corps died.”
Lincoln’s jaw set. “I will tell you, Ripley is only a pale shadow to John Dahlgren when he was chief of naval ordnance. He was rich in invention, open minded, and with the knowledge of technical things that I found in almost no one else. Is it any wonder that I looked to him for shrewd advice and friendship? I must look after his poor boy now. But I don’t think we have heard the last of young Colonel Dahlgren, one leg or no.”
As they rode along, Lincoln said, “You know, Sharpe, Lowe told me the story of his first flight when he was a cobbler’s apprentice in Portland. That was just when his young imagination was all aflame with the idea of flight. Naturally, he did not have anything like a balloon. He did have a kite, and there was this ferocious old tom in the cobbler’s shop, a great, vicious rat killer. One night he cornered the beast and forced him into a cage. He tied the cage to the kite along with a lantern. He let the offshore winds blow it to a thousand feet and lashed it a post to let it sway in the wind. Ran around town, he did, looking at it from every angle and admiring his feat. When he finally pulled it down, the tom was a shrunk furry bundle. The mean had been scared clean out of him.”
When they arrived at the Ordnance Bureau, the doorkeeper opened the double doors for them as a clerk ran up the iron stairs to tell Ripley the President was here. Ripley barely looked up from his pen to reply, “He knows where he can find me.”
The clerk had barely disappeared when Lincoln and Sharpe entered Ripley’s office. Sharpe was getting used to Lincoln’s disdain for ceremony. Ripley rose from his desk. “Good morning, Mr. President.”